Hello everyone,
I have just recently purchased Red Alert 3. I find pretty much everything about it absolutely amazing, everything from the gameplay all the way through the cutscenes, and of course the poster of all the females from the game it comes with.
Now onto the gameplay mechanics
Command and Conquer have always implemented a faster style of RTS, which i find the most immersive and easy to get into. it has only one resource needed to purchase units. It's simple, and works great. All you need to do to stop an enemy from pumping out conscripts to garrison every building on the map is just to destroy either their refineries or ore collectors. It does not focus on the economical aspect of war, thus the name COMMAND AND CONQUER, not TRY TO EXPAND AND SIT THERE. Now i find not only the C&C series awesome, for example Rise of Nations. it does things absolutely differently from C&C games. It has all resources from Knowledge through food all the way up to oil. To even launch an attack at your enemy you would need to build up all your cities, keep track of every single resource and check p on your tech level and upgrade as you go, and pretty much everything is upgradable, units through attrition damage. that makes for very long games. honestly the has not been a game of Rise of Nations that I have played that lasted less than 1.5 hours. It's definitely fun, but plays extremely slow. That said in the middle ground of it all sits Starcraft. With two resources and being moderate in speed. More powerful units created slowly and expansively , and of course the cheapo zerglings give it that average feeling. It's just an RTS. It's simple, and honestly it would be accused of ripping everyone else off it it did anything differently, that's why Starcraft 2 is doomed to me.(AND NO BLIZZARD I WILL NOT PAY 150 USD, + A MONTHLY FEE TO PLAY IT ) Nothing new besides the graphics, and just different overpowered units.
Lets think quickly about these three games mentioned: Red Alert (series), Rise of Nations, Starcraft. All of them implement different styles. Red Alert always being over the top, Rise of Nations sitting there thinking if it has enough money, metal, rocks, knowledge, oil, and food to stave off an attack, and Starcraft being the controlled unit here. Red Alert always had its cut scenes done live action, with a story that had a nice feeling about itself, and was not afraid to go as far as denigrating Einstein and creating an alternate reality. Rise of Nations having no story, but the actual events of history, does not have a story besides what history has made it. it talks about real battles that have happened, and you playing out campaigns based on Alexander the Great, Napoleon, and the Cold War. It's a game you can learn from, a little bit. Starcraft sets the universe as your stage with the clever idea of humans, or Terrans creating a different species they would use for war. THe Zerg. the great Protoss empire gets wound up in the whole thing and the story plays itself out. Im done, I dont feel like talking anymore.
In conclusion, Red Alert fucking rocks, Rise of Nations also rocks, but in a way of taking thins to the other end of the extremity spectrum. I got bored of Starcraft long ago, its an ehh game.
KIROVS for teh win.